ramtour420 wrote: The fact that other teams could not bring out the best of him only speaks more for how much we were able to capitalize on it.
Let me give you a different example.
Very soon, the Knicks will decline Frank Ntilikina's qualifying offer and renounce his player rights, along with this full Bird Rights, so they can remove his cap hold and operate better in free agency.
No other team will try to sign and trade for Ntilikina. Though some will be happy to take him in on the veteran's minimum. Maybe a contract a few shades above that. But he will end up on another team, odds on, as a street free agent. That means his Bird Rights clock resets. You can see this happened to Nerlens Noel. He spent a couple of season in OKC, then went to the Knicks. He's now edging into journeyman territory.
If you want to get paid in the NBA and get paid very very well, you need to start getting contract extensions that use the full value of your full Bird Rights.
The Lakers had Randle's full Bird Rights and let him walk. He spent a year in NO and they let him walk. Had he signed with the Knicks instead, now he'd be in a situation with his full Bird Rights instead of just his Early Bird Rights. In effect, in terms of potential long term career earnings, that year in NO was a waste. Now maybe he got some coaching or some new methodologies that helped his game there, that could be the case and maybe that helped his career, but the salary system is designed to maximize earnings for players who stay up and produce.
Randle worked like a dog because IMHO he finally realized that if he didn't produce well enough with the Knicks, his Bird Rights clock would have reset AGAIN, for the third time in his career.
Sometimes a player only changes when he's desperate. Happened to late career Vince Carter. You see Melo is a much different type of player at this point than before. Even Allen Iverson basically begged to get another shot at the NBA.
So maybe Frank Ntilikina doesn't get it yet. He's young and he's never worked a real job type job in his life. He might not see that not capitalizing on his full Bird Rights as soon as possible from a contract perspective will only shrink his overall earning options.
Some people can't naturally be humble, they need to be humbled when they run out of rope. The struggle of many pro athletes is they get it all fast and young and have never slogged through a 9-5 grind like most Americans. Maybe a few have and many had brutal childhoods, but a good number don't realize how fragile time and opportunity can become.
His first Knicks season, Randle played like a total dick. He knew he was playing like a total dick too. At some point, he realized he was going to end up jumping from team to team as a fringe guy if he didn't get his **** together.
I hear a lot of times about a franchise failing to put a functional and practical system around a player to succeed. In some cases, that's true. But in some cases, the player is a piece of ****. Often the story actually becomes true with a little bit of both. The organization needs serious work and the player is an entitled douchebag.
At some level, the NBA is just another company, the player are working just another job and everyone has the same people problems like everyone else in life, just more magnified. I'm going to be fair, my background makes it easier to just see celebrity athletes as just another ******* around the corner. At every sport and in every player's career, he will eventually face a "Come To Jesus" moment. Sometimes, like Allen Iverson, that only happens at the very end and it's pretty sad. One day, Lamar Odom, if he lives that long, will look back with regret at what he wasted at the end of his career. It happens to everyone. I've seen it up close and it's brutal. No more cheers, no more crowds, no more women trying to jam their hands in your jeans, no more free swag, no more TV time, nothing. You are just another tall limping ******* in town, but who might have Fuck You Money.
If someones wants to know how I get so many player touts right, it's because I don't look at the game like a fan. But, to be fair, I don't get the same magic some of you will get when the Knicks win another championship one day. Knowing how **** works is just another burden, a different one, but it costs you something all the same.
Enjoy your magic, but understand it often makes you blind.
